You may have noticed recent posts have discussed the martial art of Aikido.
Yes, I’m thinking about it, but am far from decided.
What follows is just me thinking aloud about the matter. If you’re curious about what’s going on in my head, read on.
Martial Arts
Positional Dominance
A dominant position is when one has a significant time and/or manuever advantage.
It was a discussion about a possible situation. Guy went into a fast food place and was at the counter ordering. Dude comes in and acts very odd and suspicious. Guy is able to use some verbal and positioning tactics to get Dude to leave. Win. SouthNarc complements Guy on how well he handled the situation and offered a suggestion on how to improve handling. In this case, instead of staying at the counter and immediately adjacent to Dude, move away (e.g. to the drink or condiment bar).
What’s important to understand is the core concept that drives this and being able to apply it across a range of tactical problems. Divergence, orientation resets, kicking the guys ass back to the second O in the OODA loop…..whatever you want to call it, is all the same.
Here’s the core concept:
What you’re trying to do constantly to create a dominant position is narrow your field of responsibility while broadening the field of the adversary. This closes the time deficit for you and opens it for the bad guy.
One creates a 90 or 180 degree angle for the bad guy and inversly [sic] shrinks their own field of responsibility. In the example laid out by [Guy] the reason the bad guy is un-nerved is because of the amount of time it takes to constantly scan between his victim and the other customer.
Ponder that for a bit.
Shioda Gozo demonstration
Aikido master Gozo Shioda demonstration.
I love the segment that runs from 1:14 to 1:36. He never lets his opponent regain his balance and always works to upset the man’s balance. Thus the ease with which he can keep the man on the mat.
His style of Aikido is still Aikido, but it’s much more rough and harsh. You see more strikes and slams (I even saw a foot stomp), not just gentle redirects. This stands to reason, since Shioda started training with Ueshiba in his early days when it was more aiki-jūjutsu than the more spiritual art that Aikido evolved into later in O Sensei’s life.. I like it. 🙂
part 2:
Watching this gives you a different take on Aikido. Many consider Aikido an art that strives to not hurt your opponent (it’s gentle). I’d say it’s more about not harming your opponent. There’s certainly a lot of hurt and pain being felt by uke in these videos. 🙂
Simple and Direct
I was flipping through the book Dynamic Aikido by Gōzō Shioda and the ending of the book just tickled me.
The book is intended to be an introduction to Aikido, and is typical of martial arts technique books. The book starts with a little history and background, then explanation of concepts, then into a lot of step-by-step technique demonstration. Major Aikido techniques are demonstrated and illustrated, because this is what people buying books want to see.
The last chapter of the book covers “practical application” and shows pictures of people in street clothing and situations, demonstrating the application of a technique. For instance, the series of pictures show a man washing up at a sink in a public restroom. Another man comes up behind the hand-washer to steal his wallet, and the hand-washer applies kote-gaeshi to defeat the pick-pocket. These practical application of fancy Aikido techniques goes on for many pages.
But the last practical application technique is never covered in the book. It doesn’t have to be.
This final movement is a good example of how in some situations simple, short measures can be effective. Indeed, this should be the criterion when considering techniques for self-defense; the less complicated a technique, the faster it can be applied and, more importantly, the less chance there is of failing.
Emphasis mine.
In the pictures you see two men sitting at a bar. One man grabs a beer bottle and swings it like a club to hit the other man. The other man merely applies a palm strike to the first man’s chin (Aikido would more push than hard strike, but let’s ignore stylistic details for now). The technique is simple, direct, fast, and effective. Sure it’s not sexy, but it works and that’s the bottom line.
Like many things in life, Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS principle).
Kombatan Arnis
A “demo/overview” sort of video on Kombatan Arnis, from GM Ernesto G. Presas, Jr.
I really like the empty-hand work at the end. But you know, it goes to show… the style doesn’t really matter. In the end, the body only moves so many ways (and doesn’t move in many other ways). Lock is a lock, throw is a throw.
How quickly it fades….
I’m always amazed at how hard it is to obtain something, but then how quickly we are able to lose it. I guess it’s a part of how the human body wants to be as efficient as possible, which means it will be hard to take on things until it can be determined worthwhile to take on, and of course the faster we can shed it the better.
Of course, the opposite seems to be the case for the fat around our middles. 😉
But I noticed it while I was very active in empty-hand martial arts. I’d work really hard to gain some skill or some level of endurance, then something caused me to drop off (e.g. injury) and how quickly I’d lose what I gained. I stopped formal empty-hand practice a little while ago and have only loosely been keeping up at home (many reasons), and I can feel it in my body. I’m itching to get back to regular formal classes and have recently started to assess how to rearrange my life to make time for that (still thinking about investigating aikido).
In the July 2010 Rangemaster newsletter, Tom Givens touches upon this in a brief article about skill atrophy:
Many times, I travel somewhere to conduct a 2-3 day handgun course, and have to spend the first half of the first day going over skills the shooters are supposed to already have. Since they have not practiced since their last class, they have lost a great deal of the skill they acquired in the last class. Motor skills involving eye/hand coordination, like shooting, require maintenance (practice). Fortunately, some of the primary skills, such as presenting the pistol from the holster, can be maintained through dry practice at home.
I forget the exact wording Mr. Givens used, but he made a clear point that it wasn’t so much the duration of your practice that mattered as it was the time relation of your practice to the time you need to put those skills into use. That is, an hour-long practice session is well and good, but if you only do it once a month is it really giving you what you need? What’s more important is the relation of your practice session to when you deploy the skills, so if you had to draw your weapon in a self-defense situation a day after that hour-long-once-a-month session, you’d likely perform well. But if it’s been 3 months since your last practice, that won’t bode well for you. Thus Tom recommended something to the effect of practicing at least 2-3 days a week thus you were never more than 2-3 days from your last practice thus things would be fairly fresh in your mind. Even if that session is just 5-10 minutes of draw and present, it was still something fresher in your mind and body than a few hours of draw and present a couple of months ago.
Of course, this is just steps to keep your level of skill from degrading. Increasing your level of skill takes even more work.
Yogi Bear – Mixed Martial Artist!
Back in 1997, John K.redid some Yogi Bear cartoons (in his twisted Ren & Stimpy-esque style).
In one of them, he had Yogi and Ranger Smith doing a little “ground and pound”
John K.'s Yogi Bear & Ranger Smith - Ground & Pound (image taken from John K.'s blog)
Check out Ranger Smith’s half-guard!
Read all about it and see more rough sketches from that episode at John K’s blog.
Pour it on
Brock Lesnar is an impressive physical specimen.
In UFC 116, Shane Carwin gave Brock one hell of a fight.
Carwin spent most of the first round on top of Brock, pounding the hell out of him. This was smart strategy for Carwin. He knows if the fight goes on longer, it favors Lesnar. He also knows that if he gives Brock a moment, Brock will take the opening. That first round teaches and important lesson for self-defense.
Do everything you can to avoid the fight. Avoid, deescalate, evade, escape. But if the fight must come, if there must be violence, then it must be ultra-violence (phrase from Greg Hamilton); you must turn it up to 11, be more aggressive, give your attacker one massive reboot to their OODA loop. Carwin didn’t win the match, but without question he decisively took that round… and all because he poured it on.
The importance of power
OldStyleMuayThai has an article on the importance of power, especially in practice.
In a streetfight you have about a three to eight second window of opportunity to finish your opponent and get away before it becomes more dangerous for you.
After the window of opportunity is closed anything can happen and it’s usually not very good.
You can both end up on the ground, more than one adversary can appear, weapons can be drawn against you, and your energy will be severely drained.
So why would you be throwing love taps at your attacker when he is totally committed to ripping your head from your shoulders and kicking it down the street.
There is no reason why anybody should be sparring with their adversary when in a streetfight.
That’s why I tell people to have intent when they train in the gym or dojo, spar like you’re in a streetfight, and not like you’re in a cardio boxing class.
While he’s talking within the context of fisticuffs, really the principle is applicable to any context. And it’s summed up in one line:
GET REAL AND START TRAINING LIKE YOU MEAN IT!!!
Whatever the reason you’re training, remember that reason. When you are training, train towards that goal. So if your goal is self-defense, hit that punching bag like it’s someone intent on ripping your head off. Shoot that target like it’s someone intent on raping your wife and leaving you for dead. Put your mindset where it needs to be.
Granted, not all training sessions can be this way, and it’s not always applicable. For instance, I may be training for a competition instead of self-defense; that is, I may have multiple goals that I’m working towards. That’s fine, because the key remains to not just go out there and tap the bag or fling lead downrange or whatever. Set your goal, work towards it.
Going to the ground
You know what can happen if you end up on the ground in a fight?
Colbert was charged Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. with two counts of murder, police said. He was arrested at his home Monday at 8 p.m. for being one of the individuals who kicked Albert several times in the head and torso after Albert was on the ground — ultimately causing his death, according to a police report.
I know MMA and BJJ is all the rage. I love watching UFC and WEC fights. I loved my study of Muay Thai. I enjoy joint locks and submission moves. I totally agree that you do yourself a favor by knowing how to handle yourself in grappling situations.
But in a true fight (i.e. not sport/competition), should going to the ground be your strategy? Well, every situation is different and who knows what your situation at the time may call for. But as a general rule, I would say no, you should not try to take it to the ground. If you end up on the ground (very possible), you should do your best to get up off the ground as quickly as possible. Why? Well, as the above story reads: guy’s going to have friends, and they’re going to stomp your head into the pavement. It takes no skill to stomp someone’s head into the pavement, just determination. And it doesn’t take much for you to get your bell rung… one good stomp to the head and your head meets the pavement could be all that’s needed to knock you out.
So again, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s good to have grappling skills. I think it’s good to know how to handle yourself on the ground. If you are training for pure self-defense, part of your ground skills should be knowing how to quickly get up off the ground, back on your feet, and back into the fight or escaping. Being on the ground is not where you want to be.
Stuff From Hsoi 